


Demolition

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Backstory 101 [4]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 14:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9824537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: Cecil looked up at last. "Thanks for coming. Sorry for being inconvenient."Earl didn't insult his friend with the obvious lie. Of course it was inconvenient, but the depth of their friendship meant it was okay. He made full eye contact, tried to radiate warmth. "You know I don't mind, hun, always good to see you. What's up?"Cecil smiled at that and choked back his husband's habitual joke.





	

The door opened and closed, letting a wave of heat wash over the tables nearby before the aircon returned the interior of the diner to its usual just-cool-enough ambience. Earl waved at the greeter, busy wiping plastic menus, and pointed at the last booth before the wall ran out of window, where a solitary figure hunched into the corner by the red gingham half-curtain that shielded him from outside view. Cecil was so absorbed in tuning out the clatter of dishes and the chatter of strangers' conversations that he took a moment to notice Earl sliding into the seat opposite him at his favourite booth. He had arrived maybe half an hour earlier. Could have been longer, might have been only a few minutes but the cup cradled in Cecil's hands, although still only half-empty, was cool. Time, huh? 

"Hey," Earl smiled and looked around for their server, "You want a fresh cup or a refill? Some pie?"  
Cecil seemed to unfold. He un-rounded his shoulders, stretched his arms and tilted his head back with a crunch made audible only by the bones in his skull. He shook his head.  
"Okay," Earl ordered. Cecil stared into the murk of his abandoned cup and sighed.

After a couple of conversational false starts from Earl, they sat in silence that managed, by the power of a long shared history, not to be awkward. Earl drank coffee, thanked the server for his refill (and Cecil's, he failed to snatch the cup away before the coffeepot appeared over it) and complimented the quality of the pie. He smiled and winked when the server called him _sweetheart._

Cecil looked up at last. "Thanks for coming. Sorry for being inconvenient."  
Earl didn't insult his friend with the obvious lie. Of course it was inconvenient, but the depth of their friendship meant it was okay. He made full eye contact, tried to radiate warmth. "You know I don't mind, hun, always good to see you. What's up?"

Cecil smiled at that and choked back his husband's habitual joke. It made him angry that Carlos couldn't understand. He'd tried for weeks: _"Hey I saw at City Hall there are plans to bulldozer that run down development beyond the bowling alley, you know the one? Where I grew up?"_ and _"I put in an appeal and I'm organising a petition to save that development. Would you take a few sheets and get the scientists and your visitors to sign it too? Maybe come out with me and help me get people to sign it in town?"_ and _"That's it, they're going to knock down my old home and no one cares but me."_

Carlos had been oblivious. He'd offered some platitudes about cheering up and moving on, signs of relentless forward progress, heading into the future together in their new place instead of hanging on to past events that may or may not have relevance to their present, _maybe it's a good thing that you have to let go, hey poot?_ Cecil had set his jaw at that and gone to work without a goodbye kiss, seething in his office at this blatant, no, _deliberate_ insensitivity. When Cecil went home that night, it was not to the small, modern dwelling he shared with the scientist. No. He went _home._ And Carlos didn't even call.

Earl listened until Cecil ran out of words and stared at his hands. He sighed. "Worse than the _Godfather one and two _incident?" Cecil nodded twice. Earl reached across the plastic chequered tablecloth, secured one of Cecil's hands and gave it a squeeze. "Has Carlos been in touch at all?"  
Cecil nodded. "Yeah, he texted to say he was running some scientifically fascinating project and might be keeping odd hours for a few days. Ugh. I bet he hasn't even noticed I'm not there."__

Earl kept hold of Cecil's hand but leaned back, stretching his arm out to stay connected. "Ah."  
"Ah," Cecil echoed.  
"You know, Carlos is a good man, hun, and he loves you. Perhaps he just doesn't have the same connection to his past that you do to yours." Earl leaned forward again. "Did you ask him to help you clear your old place?"  
"He should have known!" Cecil snatched his hand back so that he could shrug expressively. "He should have offered, I shouldn't have to ask for everything."  
"But Carlos isn't–"  
_"You_ offered! You called me up as soon as you found out and offered to help me take stuff to the recycling centre. I didn't need to ask _you_ for support. You were just _there_ and Carlos..."  
"Carlos doesn't know any more than the words you choose to tell him, Ceece." Earl shook his head slowly and reached for Cecil's hand again. "He didn't live though your past with you. He doesn't know about all those things that happened. Tell him what you want from him."  
Cecil's gaze lowered back to his cup. He took a tentative sip. "I don't know if I can." 

Earl insisted. Cecil left his half-full cup and Earl paid. They met in the car park next to Earl's old car.  
"Look, pretend I'm Carlos. No!" Earl hald up his hand and grinned, "I promise I won't do _the voice_ or say _hmmm_ and rub my chin. Just... just come to your old place with me and pretend I'm Carlos and tell me what you want to tell him."  
"It won't work!" Cecil protested, "You already know everything. You won't react the way he does when I mention some of the things I've done. To myself. You know." 

Earl knew exactly what Cecil meant. His _black hole,_ his _dark planet lit by no sun,_ his _coils of the universe unraveling_ or whatever euphemism he settled on to describe his episodes of hopelessness and helpless, soul-sucking self-loathing and desire to stop his existence, his deliberate acts of self-destruction fuelled by his insatiable need for _something_ if only he knew what. Earl drove cautiously and shivered despite the afternoon heat, sneaking glances at Cecil's profile. He looked preoccupied and unhappy, and Earl's heart sank a little further with each sigh. 

The house looked dusty. Despite having lain unlived-in for years, the square windows were unbroken and the wooden door was smooth enough on its hinges although the screen door banged and juddered behind them. The steps up to the door squealed and creaked underfoot but held their weight. There was no power or water, of course, the whole neighbourhood had been disconnected ready for the bulldozers to begin eradicating Cecil's history. Earl took Cecil's hand, weaving their fingers together like he used to, so long ago, before someone told him _just friends don't do that sort of thing._

In the boxy living room, Earl saw but did not comment on the blanket and pillow on the battered old sofa, or the empty bottles on the floor. They walked from room to room downstairs, pausing at the foot of the narrow staircase.  
"Want to go up?" Earl pointed to a stain on the faded carpet and grinned at Cecil. "Remember that party we had here? I brought half a bottle of red wine and Nazr mixed it with some weird liqueur that smelled of hazelnuts, and Leann drank it then bolted for the bathroom to barf?"  
Cecil puffed out a laugh. "She didn't make it in time. Aby grounded me until the smell went away. It took weeks!" 

"Come on," Earl started up the staircase, pulling Cecil behind him. The first room had been Aby's. It was empty, with yellowed walls that still showed the locations of her posters of boybands with improbable up-dos and daring make up. Next was Cecil's mom's room. Cecil waited on the small landing as Earl poked his head around the door. The tubular-steel hospital bed was still there in spirit, dents in the carpet showing where the castors had gouged into the floor. A pair of brackets on the wall gave away the position that some machine or other had occupied while it tried in vain to extend a life relinquished with relief by its owner. Earl closed his eyes in silent prayer although he was unclear as to where his thoughts were directed, or even who they were about. He would not make Cecil face this. 

Cecil's old room was last. Cecil stood in the middle of the room, looking out of the small window while Earl took in the ripped poster, the fresh hole punched in the wall, the way Cecil had flinched back at The Moonlight and hidden his other hand under the table.  
"What's here, Ceece? What do you need Carlos to see?"  
"I don't even know," Cecil's hand shook as he rubbed his face. "There is nothing here he would recognise. There are no memories here for him. Sometimes I wonder if he has any memories at all, you know?" Cecil held eye contact with Earl. Earl stood close but not touching.  
"You want him to see who you were?"  
"Maybe," Cecil looked at the hole in the wall and shuddered. "Or maybe I want him to see that sometimes I am _still_ that frightened teenager, terrified of my own reflection and scared to tell anyone in case they laugh. Jeez, Earl, I thought that was just how life is. Back then. If I'm going through Hell then so must everyone else be, but we're all too busy _coping_ to talk about it and nobody dares stop pretending everything's fine. I wanted it all to stop. All of it." 

Earl put his arms around Cecil. It wasn't the first time he'd heard Cecil's story, after all he'd lived some of it with him. He'd been at that party. He'd seen Cecil's mom brought home from hospital with a shrug from the paramedic and strict instructions from the palliative care nurse. He'd been the one Cecil had run to, literally, late at night with terrible news, the worst news of Cecil's life so far. He'd been home a few days later when Aby came to collect her little brother and take him back, thus sealing her own future tight shut, not yet conscious fully that this was her life from now on, the one who makes sacrifices to do right by her family. He'd been there on that stupid seaside holiday where Cecil had first– _No!_ Earl chided himself. _That's all in the past and can't hurt him any more than it already has._

Cecil leaned against Earl, biting his lip so that he could focus on physical pain. Earl felt like scooping Cecil up and running away from that nightmare house. The demolition couldn't happen fast enough, he thought, _maybe some histories are best obliterated._  
Earl sighed and released Cecil. "Let's go. Take some keepsakes if you want to remember this place, but for the love of the glowing cloud, Ceece, let's get out of here." 

Cecil sniffed, wiped his face again and followed Earl from room to room again, picking up a handful of random-looking items and shoving them into a flimsy plastic bag. Earl drove them both back to Cecil and Carlos's new place with its bright curtains and painted woodwork, the yard Carlos had planted with herbs and succulents lending shades of green and blue-grey to the taupe grass and red soil. Carlos's car sat in the drive. Earl pulled up to the kerb with the engine still running.  
"Looks like Carlos is home. Will you talk to him?" Earl scrutinised Cecil's face. Cecil shrugged.  
"Yeah. Maybe. I need to think myself up to it."  
"Okay. See you both Friday? Dinner?"  
Before Cecil could answer, the front door opened and Carlos came bounding out, his grin lighting his face.  
"Ceece! Oh honey, I'm glad you're back. Sorry I've been _oh hi Earl! You want to come in?_ away so much but... aaaah, science! Anyway, I was thinking, it's what I do, about your old home being demolished and I mentioned it to 'Chelle and she told me I'm an idiot, which isn't actually true because I'm a _scientist_ but I guess _bye Earl, see you Friday_ she made me see that I can be a bit too wrapped up in my work sometimes and maybe I should get you a gift and come home and..." 

Earl didn't hear the rest, but in his rearview mirror he saw Cecil and Carlos embrace in their yard and walk hand in hand up to their front door. As he drove home, Earl's thoughts shifted from Cecil's past, and by association his own, to their present and future. Perhaps... no, it was ridiculous to think it. Dangerous, even, to risk their friendship. And yet Earl still wondered if a future might exist where he did not have to hand Cecil back to Carlos and slip away. 


End file.
